


Lighter In Your Pocket.

by fearless_seas



Series: The Three Trials of Jacky Ickx. [1]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love/Hate, M/M, Memories, POV Second Person, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 02:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14606871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: Jacky Ickx is fine with people hating him; unless they are Jochen Rindt.





	Lighter In Your Pocket.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr is @sonofhistory or @pieregasly if you need to contact me. Enjoy.

          He hates you. You know this because of the stern glance Jackie Stewart throws your way every time you saunter up the paddock with your thumbs in your front pockets. That afternoon you can feel the sun on your cheeks as it rustles your hair, you can hear the engines come to life on the grid and, for once, you wish you weren’t Jacky Ickx. It is active, you sense the push and pressure of the splintering crowd in the stands. Preparing for practice the remnants of nerves are nowhere to be found within you. He is over there, Jochen Rindt that is, he hasn’t put his helmet on quite yet. There is something relaxed about him, a restful boat in a pearling sea of worry and there is art in the way the warm wind embraces his brown hair as leaves on a tree and the sol kisses his lips. They are quiet, staring at the ground absentmindedly with a foot propped up over the hood and their arms folded. The weather plays with him and he is flirting with the cigarette he has placed between his lips. The roseate glow on his cheeks is making your stomach burn. You pretend not to be observing him and turn your eyes to your own vehicle. It is burning to the touch and you can already feel the hold of the seatbelt against your chest. The helmet is settled into your seat, you motion away and slide your hands into your pockets.

          Something in you demands of you to remain in place, to pull your sunglasses over your eyes and pretend you’d never seen him. But another part, smaller than a star against the night sky, writes little pieces of poetry and crams them at the corner of your skull, writes them to Jochen from across the room. You remind yourself: he hates you. It doesn’t make your stomach coil as it used to, you are quite used to this by now. But maybe the fact that it is Jochen is what leaves a sour knot at the back of your throat. But you can remember what his voice sounded as when you first touched pieces of each other, how serious the lines of his face are even when he smiles. A distance. A statue set free into the world. The pallid, long shape of his visage, the scarlet shades on his neck and the low, deep grumble of his voice like an endless well. You never find out why: why he really didn’t like you. You could guess because you knew what he told Jackie Stewart.

          “Wear a seatbelt, Jacky,” the Scot had their feet propped up on a box and were seated at an odd angle when he said this. They were rustic, homegrown and flat like the blunt edge of a flattened screwdriver. You stayed silent, unblinking, not even allowing a smirk to crawl an inch up your forehead. Jochen had come back in that moment, Jackie held his breath when the two of you crossed paths. You looked up, met their eyes, perhaps your shoulders brushed, a tiny semblance of intimacy lost after you put your head down and left. Your claws are barred, and you want to speak with him this time so without warning your feet move you down the garage line. They don’t notice you approach at first, kept their eyes distant and absent with their fingers rubbing, aching in the burn of the cigarette. You’ve learned to accept things, understand the impression you make upon people, comprehend it whenever you feel eyes upon you. Jackie gawks at you as if you were going to bite, Clay Regazzoni tries his sense of humor nervously and Ignazio Giunti avoids you. But Jochen, _oh_ , that Austrian; he follows you from far with curiosity and you find that more _fascinating_ than anything you’ve ever felt.

          As you approach the vehicle, you pause, stand there for a moment and run a finger carefully over the body of green as if it were a priceless painting--to him, to racers, to you, it was. Words don’t come out of your mouth and Jochen is distracted, unmoving. A sound from the end of the pit tears his eyes up to attention before falling upon you. He doesn’t smile, he does not even appear surprised. Every time you look at him, it stirs within you, a collection of beautiful objects drowning beneath waves. You have fallen so deeply that you do not realize how far it can go from here. Jochen uncrosses his arms, lays them down at his side and the world stills then. You want to touch him, yearn to reach for his wrist and thumb the bed with the pad of your fingers. You tend to leave people behind without having ever saying a word to them. But, maybe, you both know it is the last day. Can sense it in the way the clouds are pitying the both of you, know it at the pit of your humanity. Because you do not speak, neither does he. Stern, wooden faces drawn and arched into arrows. Everyday they act as though it is their last, but now you feel it and he feels it too. It will take a moment to leave and a lifetime to say goodbye.

          The both of you have been fighting for the title all season long, scraped, clawed yourselves onto the podium. Neither of you were expecting it, this type of closure, handed in the way that you reach forward and give him your hand, experienced in the shape of his palm in yours. Fingers brush, curling and coiling together as flames do. But in that moment, in that time, a chest away and a time apart, when your hands touch, you’re kissing him, holding every inch of him. When your hands fall apart you’re whispering something that your tongue has never known the shape of. The both of you are planets that were never meant to orbit. You see it, in the indigo of his eyes, the sharp tension at the creases of his vision have ceased and you are... calm. But he nods slowly and you walk away without turning over your shoulder.

          You know, quietly, he is whispering, _goodbye_.

          And you? _I love you._

          But it is fun, isn’t it? Sends ripples of pleasure when you think maybe, he never did hate you. _Don’t be a fool_ , he is begging you, Jochen Rindt, and praying that you, Jacky Ickx, will forget everything, erase the memories and continue to live. You cannot even try.

          An hour later you taste those syllables as they wet your lips and you swallow them for good. In the Lotus garage everything is still. Jackie is crumpled next to his car with his face in his hands. He is shaking, he is weeping. The blood is boiling in your ears, a vacant, hollow shape is burning its way into your heart vaguely in the shape of them. You try to cry, blinking your eyes you can only slide to the ground and the dust of familiar sadness settles in your chest. Your knuckles come up to your face, the same Jochen had kissed them with his fingertips and you could only imagine what you want on your lips. You were never friends with him, you never touched him or held him, but god, _you loved him_. Across the dust, Jackie is slack in the dirt alone with the remnants of a coke smashed against the wall. You rise to your feet, brush off your hands and swallow your pride. He quivers, trembles when your hand grips his shoulder. You hold him because nobody else is, while all you want is to be held yourself. You tell yourself: _he loved him too_. But you also know: _it is not the same_.

          Unrequited. Not one will ever know but you. They won’t even know. You do, everyday and through everything.

          After a while, it is dark and Jackie is gone. You ghost your gaze over to the Lotus garage, the mangled vehicle residing there like a broken toy. Your feet memorize and act as you stood when he touched you for the first time. But no matter what: you do not let yourself cry. You tell his phantom, his ghost as you imagine it stands next to you:

          “I love you, Jochen.”

          Their teeth break through tight, thin lips, “Tell the world.”

          You never do.  


**Author's Note:**

> NOTES:  
> \- On and off the racing paddock, Jackie Stewart and Jochen Rindt were best friends.  
> \- Jackie Stewart noted once in an interview that Jochen Rindt liked everyone on the paddock except Jacky Ickx.  
> \- Jacky Ickx didn't often wear a seatbelt when driving because he preferred to be thrown from the vehicle then be burnt (as he was in 1968).  
> \- Clay Regazzoni and Ignazio Giunti are both teammates that Jacky Ickx had in the 1970 season.  
> \- Jochen Rindt was driving for team Lotus at the time and his teammate was Graham Hill.  
> \- The entire 1970 season was a fight between Jacky Ickx and Jochen Rindt as both tried to win the world championship. Jacky at the end of the season ended up a close second and Jochen (even though he had died) was still in the lead and is the only F1 driver to win the championship posthumously.  
> \- Jochen Rindt died during practice at the Monza track on September 5th, 1970.  
> \- When Jackie Stewart found out about Jochen Rindt's death, he cried in his car until he got out on his car and was offered a coke (which he smashed against the wall).


End file.
